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Character Creation Overview
Character creation in UTTAS follows an 8 step process: * Decide on a character concept * Determine your persona's Characteristics * Choose your persona's Skills * Pick out your persona's Traits * Build your persona's Abilities * Develop your persona's Flaws and Complications * Fill out any final calculations * Flesh out your persona With the exception of coming up with a character concept and fleshing out your persona, everything is recorded on a character sheet. Beyond these steps, Game Masters can also introduce templates to simulate different races, archetypical classes, or physical attributes such as height or weight. When starting a campaign, Game Masters must decide whether to implement either free-form character creation or a fixed point system. * Free-Form Character Creation: Under this option, players receive a pool of character points they can distribute between their Characteristics, Skills, Traits, and Abilities. Flaws and Complications provide bonus points for characters to use in building their characters, although the Game Master can and should implement a cap on how many bonus points players can get from multiple Flaws and Complications. * Fixed-Point System: Under this option, players receive a pre-determined number of character points they can spend in each category. Characteristics receive their own pool, Skills have their limit in character points, ect. Characters can gain bonus character points they can spend however they wish by taking Flaws and Complications, but there is a cap on how additional points they can acquire in this fashion. Game Masters must decide on the limits for each category in character creation and advancement. This overview of character creation will address both Free-Form and Fixed-Point systems in terms of character point costs. How many points players have to build their characters depends on how many the Game Master allows them to work with, but the designer recommends limits based on this table: Deciding on a character concept UTTAS doesn't have a traditional class system, meaning character are described not by arbitrary titles, but by what they can actually do. Don't think about what role you want your character to play in a group and what archetype you should be filling; instead, think about what sounds like the most fun concept for you to be. All table top RPGs are cooperative experiences, but the most important thing is that you are playing what you want to play. Think of your concept in regards to the following passage: * "I am Willow, born and raised in the wild and dedicated to protecting nature. I'm a tough and intelligent woman, I can get deer to eat out of my hand, and I can move around in forests as swiftly as any wolf. I don't get along with others, I see threats where there are often none, and I'm haunted by the death of my family, but I can call upon the powers of nature to aid me in my crusade against those who would defile the lands." This passage offers a clear description of who the character is and what they can do. "Born and raised in the wild" offers a basic explanation of where she comes from, and "dedicated to protecting nature" displays what the character wants to do. Being tough and intelligent describes her most obvious physical and mental traits, "I can get deer to eat out my hand" suggests she's trained in handling animals, and the ability to "move through forests as swiftly as any wolf" tells us she operates best in the woods. We get insights into her personality from her personal failings, and being "haunted by the death of my family" suggests a traumatic backstory. Finally, the ability to "call upon the powers of nature" conveys the final theme of the character, that of a magic user who bends the natural world to her whims. Using this description, the player using Willow can create much richer and flavorful persona than the generic, "I am Bob, a dwarf fighter who hits things with an axe." characters in class-based game systems can be reduced to. Tiers of Play When a Game Master starts a campaign, they usually specify what tier of player characters are going to start at. This sets how many points players start off with to make their characters and should give players an idea of what tone the campaign is going to take at the start. Tiers represent the following styles of play: * Ordinary: The players start off as ordinary people with little or no specialized training in combat and no special powers. This tier is best suited for survival horror or post-apocalyptic settings in which the characters are fighting for survival against significantly more powerful enemies. * Competent: The players start with greater degree of knowledge and experience than an ordinary person in their professions, and they might display some degree of supernatural power. This tier is great for if characters start off as amateur adventurers or low-ranking soldiers in an army, able to hold their own in a fight but weak enough to overwhelmed by dangerous situations. * Heroic: The players have skills and powers equivalent to elite soldiers, experienced adventurers, and street-level superheros. Each character should be tough enough to take on multiple foes on their own, but they will still have to take dangerous situations carefully to avoid being killed or seriously injured. * Super-Heroic: The players are some of the most powerful beings in their own lands, able to take on whatever situation is thrown at them. All but the strongest foes pose a serious threat to them. These characters have a near-mythical ability to survive situations that would kill anyone else, and their powers enable them to wield considerable influence over others. * Cosmic: The player start off with enough power to venture into parts unknown, where they will engage threats that could sunder entire worlds and overwhelm the sanity of lesser beings. The characters are practically demigods, unchallenged by anything from their home worlds and desperate for new experiences. Characteristics Base Characteristics Base Characteristics represent the character's basic abilities, such as their physical strength, conditioning, intelligence, and force of presence. All Base Characteristics begin at a Base of 10, it costs 1 Character Point to increase a Characteristic by 1, and unless the character has a template that raises this Base, they cannot be naturally raised above 20 through training. Players can also reduce any of their Characteristics by up to 5 points below their Base and reallocate those points to another Characteristic. The Base Characteristics are: * Agility: A character's swiftness and physical reflexes ** Training: Reflex training ** Determines: Ability to dodge attacks, movement speed, and times they can act in combat * Body: How healthy the character is and their ability to endure pain. ** Training: Cardiovascular exercises and nutrition ** Determines: Resilience to attacks, stamina * Charisma: A character's force of presence. ** Training: Carousing, dating, and public speaking ** Determines: Force of presence and inner power * Dexterity: A character's fine motor skills and coordination ** Training: Detail-oriented tasks ** Determines: Accuracy, wide variety of skills * Ego: A character's mental toughness. ** Training: Fasting and meditation ** Determines: Force of will, mental defense * Intelligence: How smart a character is. ** Training: Reading, research, and solving puzzles ** Determines: Magical power, wide variety of skills * Strength: The character's physical strength ** Training: Weight-lifting ** Determines: Physical attack damage, carrying and lifting capacity Derived Characteristics Derived Characteristics are those that, except for Hit Points, cannot be accurately represented by any one Base Characteristic. Instead, they combine the character's physical and mental abilities into a new statistic to better portray concepts such as the ability to withstand pain or how well the character can hold up under mental duress. * Dodge (Formula: Agility+Dexterity/2+11): How well a character can evade attacks. ** How does it work: An opponent rolls an Accuracy check to see if they hit your character. If their roll is under your character's Dodge, the attack has no effect. * Discipline (Formula: Ego+Presence/2+11): How well a character fends off mental attacks ** How does it work: An opponent rolls an accuracy check to see if they hit your character. If their roll is under your character's discipline, the attack is ineffective. * Toughness (Formula: Strength+Body/2): How resilient a character is to physical attacks ** How does it work: An opponent rolls an accuracy check for a physical attack versus your dodge and succeeds in hitting. Your opponent rolls damage, and you subtract your toughness (and other forms of physical defense) from the attack to calculate the total damage you take. * Resistance (Formula: Body+Ego/2): How resilient a character is to energy attacks ** How does it work: An opponent rolls an Accuracy check for an energy attack versus your Dodge and succeeds in hitting. Your opponent rolls damage, and you subtract your Resistance (and other forms of energy defense) from the attack to calculate the total damage you take. * Willpower (Formula: Body+Charisma/2): How resilient a character is to mental attacks ** How does it work: An opponent rolls an accuracy check for a mental or psychological attack versus your discipline and succeeds in effecting you. Your opponent rolls their dice of effect, and you subtract your Willpower from the total of their roll to determine how effective their mental ability was. * Speed (Formula: Agility+Dexterity/4): How fast a character can act and react in combat over a period of 12 seconds. ** How does it work: Every Round, your character can perform a number of actions equal to their Speed. These actions are spent when moving, attacking, using a skill, and reacting to enemy attacks. Once the character runs out of actions, they cannot do anything until the end of their next turn. * Health (Formula: Bodyx2): How much bodily damage a character can take until they die. ** How does it work: A monster attacks the character and damages the character until they run out of Health. Once the character runs out of Health, the monster kills the character. * Stamina Points (Formula: Body+Egox2): How much force a character can withstand before they fall unconscious. ** How does it work: A monster attacks the character and damages the character until they run out of Stamina Points. Once the character runs out of Stamina Points, the monster knocks the character unconscious. If the player comes up with a decimal for any of their Derived Characteristics, the decimal doesn't round up; instead, the stat reverts to the last whole number it exceeded. Characteristics Dice With the exception of Accuracy checks, all rolls in UTTAS are based on Characteristic Dice, which are acquired from the character's dice. The number of dice for such checks is calculated by dividing the Base Characteristic by 5. Characteristic Dice are added to Skill checks, effect rolls for Powers, and damage rolls for Combat Maneuvers. * For Example: Willow has 10 Strength. 10 divided by 5 is 2, and therefore she has 2 Strength Dice she applies to physical attack damage, grapple checks, and other maneuvers based on Strength. If the Characteristic doesn't divide into a whole number, the character does not round up any decimal points to the highest whole number. Skills Skills are special ability checks made to perform specific tasks requiring a greater deal of training, such as disabling electronics, applying first aid, and negotiating with merchants. All skill rolls are performed with Characteristic dice to start, and gaining proficiency allows the character to add 3d6 to the roll. Additional ranks in proficiency adds an additional die to the skill roll. In Free-Form character creation, each rank costs 2 Character Points. Skills are separated into these categories according to their primary Characteristic used for checks: * Agility: Skills based on Agility ** Acrobatics: The character's sense of balance and equilibrium, determining how well they can stand on unstable surfaces and perform mid air maneuvers, ** Climb: The character's ability to climb various vertical surfaces and their ability to hang on to unstable surfaces. ** Driving: The character's skill in operating various vehicles. ** Stealth: The characters ability to move around without being seen or heard * Dexterity: Skills based on Dexterity ** Contortionist: The character's ability to contort their body to get our of holds and entangles ** Disable Device: The character's ability to take apart various devices ** Sleight of Hand: The character's ability to perform slight of hand tricks. * Intelligence: Skills based on Intelligence ** Appraisal: A character's ability to assess the worth of various objects ** Deduction: A character's ability to assess a situation and come to a conclusion ** Disguise: A character's ability to change their physical appearance ** First Aid: A character's ability to patch up wounds and apply basic first aid ** Knowledge: A character's knowledge in various subjects ** Linguistics: A character's ability to speak various languages ** Profession: A character's ability to perform a particular job ** Tactics: A character's ability to assess a battle and come up with strategies ** Tracking: A character's ability to follow hidden creatures * Interaction: Skills based on Charisma ** Bluff: How well a character can lie ** Charm: A character's ability to make people like them ** Handle Animal: How well a character interacts with animals ** Intimidate: A character's ability to interrogate and force others to do what they want ** Performance: How well a character plays an instrument, sings, dances, and performs speeches. ** Streetwise: How well a character navigates the criminal underworld Equipment Skills Equipment skills stand apart from other skills in that they don't rely on Characteristics, and there are no rolls involved in their use. Instead, training in equipment allows players to use them without penalties and gain bonuses associated with the equipment. Gear is separated into the following categories: * Weapons: Character can wield weapons to either increase their melee damage or attack from a distance. Weapon categories are: Axes, Bows, Clubs, Crossbows, Fist-Loads, Flails, Hammers, Heavy Blades, Light Blades, Pistols, Polearms, Rifles, Scythes, and Shotguns. Anything outside those categories requires its own rank in Proficiency. * Armor: Characters can wear armor to protect themselves from attacks. Lighter armors grant fewer bonuses to Physical and Energy Defense, but heavier armors penalize Dodge and make characters move more slowly. * Shields: Characters can carry shields to further increase their defenses and increase their likelihood of dodging attacks. Lighter shields like bucklers are better suited for deflecting blows, while heavier shields are made to just absorb blows. * Vehicles: Vehicles come in the following categories: Animals, Bikes, Boats, Cars, Helicopters, Carts, Planes, Ships, Sleds, Submarines, Trucks, and Zeppelins. Proficiency Skill Proficiency is based on six different ranks representing the character's knowledge in a particular technique: Basic, Practiced, Proficient, Good, Expert, and Master. All skills start at Basic, which means they roll Characteristic dice when making the skill check. Proficiency allows the character to ad 3d6 to their roll, and every rank above Proficiency adds an additional die to the check. * Basic: The character has no training in the skill and must rely on luck to succeed. * Proficient: The character has a basic amount of training in the skill, enough to use their Base Characteristic efficiently in completing the skill, but not so much so that they can complete tasks reliant on that skill reliably. * Practiced: The character has the necessary training to complete tasks utilizing the skill reliably, though they won't be as skilled as others who have devoted more time to perfecting their art. * Expert: The character has spent considerable time perfecting their technique with a particular skill, allowing them to complete tasks involving that skill a majority of the time. * Mastery: The character's proficiency with a skill is effectively perfect, meaning they will complete tasks using that skill almost all of the time and do so with minimal mistakes. For Equipment Proficiencies, ranks above Basic grant the following bonuses: * Weapons: For every rank in a weapon category, the player receives a +1 bonus to Accuracy checks with weapons in that category. * Armor: For every two ranks past the first, the player receives a +1 bonus to Toughness and Resistance while wearing armor in that category. At 2 and 4 ranks, the penalty to Dodge for wearing armor decreases by 1. * Shields: For every two ranks past the first, the player receives a +1 bonus to Dodge while using a shield in that category. At ranks 2 and 4, the player receives a +1 bonus to Armor. * Vehicles: For every rank in proficiency with a vehicle category, the penalty to the player's Dodge while using a vehicle in that category decreases by 1. Skill Checks When a character wants to complete a task, they must complete a skill check as appropriate. The character rolls the number of d6s under the appropriate skill and adds the total together. If the total exceeds a target number set by the Game Master, the player is successful in completing the task. Optional Choice: Backgrounds If a player has a hard time deciding what skills would be appropriate, they can narrow down 6 of their choices according to their background. A character's background is represented by their childhood, education, and current occupation. * Childhood: How a character was raised from birth up through early childhood ** Adopted: Deduction, Linguistics ** Blue Collar: 1 Professional skill ** Farmer: Handle Animal, Knowledge (Nature) ** Nobility: Charm, Knowledge (Nobility) ** Poverty: Sleight of Hand, Streetwise ** Refugee: Bluff, Persuasion or Streetwise ** Slavery: 1 Professional skill, Streetwise ** Traveler: Knowledge (Geography) or Knowledge, Linguistics ** Urchin: Concealment, Streetwise ** Wealthy: Appraisal, 1 Knowledge or Performance skill ** White Collar: 2 Knowledge skills ** Wilderness: Handle Animal and Knowledge (Nature) * Education: How a character was taught from their early childhood through their teens ** Apprenticeship: 1 Professional skill. ** Child Soldier: Tactics, 1 Weapon proficiency ** Delinquent: Streetwise, 1 Tool proficiency ** Home Schooled: 1 Knowledge and 1 Professional Skill ** Military School: Tactics, 1 Weapon or Vehicle Proficiency ** Private School: 2 Knowledge skill and 1 other skill ** Public School: 2 Knowledge or Professional skill ** Slavery: 1 Profession, and 1 Knowledge skill ** Wild Child: Handle Animal and Knowledge (Nature) * Occupation: What kind of work skills the character developed to compliment their current lifestyle ** Academic: 1 Knowledge skill ** Adventurer: Knowledge (Nature or Underground) ** Athlete: Acrobatics or Climb ** Blue Collar: 1 Profession or Knowledge skill ** Celebrity: Performance ** Creative: Performance and 1 Profession skill ** Criminal: Disable Device, Sleight of Hand, or Stealth ** Doctor: Knowledge (1 field of health science) and Paramedics ** Emergency Services: Paramedics ** Entrepreneur: Appraisal, 1 Profession skill ** Investigative: Streetwise ** Law Enforcement: Knowledge (Law) ** Military: Tactics, and 1 other skill ** Priest: Knowledge (Theology) ** Rural: Knowledge (Nature) ** Student: 1 Knowledge skill ** Technician: Profession (Electrician) ** White Collar: 1 Profession skill If players are unsatisfied with the above options, they have two additional options they can choose so long as they work with the Game Master. The first option is to make up their own Childhood, Education, and Occupation backgrounds. UTTAS's core mechanics aren't meant to reflect any one setting, but instead cater to a variety of settings according to what the Game Master wants their setting to be. Because of this, there are plenty of other ways for characters to grow up and learn, and a variety of other occupations that will be present in some settings that aren't available in others. Therefore, it's only logical that players should have the option of working with their Game Master to build a Background that better reflects the type of character the player wants. The second option is for their character to have amnesia. With the Game Master's permission, the player may select any 6 six skills to take the place of their Background skills. They then present this list to the Game Master and leave it up to them to determine the character's origin, how and why they developed those skills, and potentially for what reason the character lost their memories. This option takes away some of the player's input into whatever plot lines the Game Master develops, but it can also lend itself to some interesting role playing opportunities. Traits Traits are additional abilities that act independently of skills or powers. In Free-Form character creation, each Trait costs 5 Character Points. The available Traits are: * Adept: Infuse martial arts techniques with channeling * Ambidextrous: Take no penalties for fighting with two weapons * Blind-Fighting: No disadvantage to Accuracy rolls for attacking unseen targets * Calculator: Compute math problems 10 times faster than a normal human * Channeling: Channel energy from various sources to build Powers * Directional Sense: Always know what direction north is and accurately judge distances * Double Jointed: +10 Strength when breaking out of grapples * Eidetic Memory: Accurately remember everything your character encounters to the smallest detail * Lightsleep: No disadvantages to Perception checks made while sleeping * Master of Improv: Use improvised weapons with Martial Arts * Speed Reading: Read 10 times faster than a normal person * Striking Appearance: +10 Presence when making Interaction checks relating to physical appearance * Terrain Mastery: Move through one type of terrain without penalty * Time Sense: Accurately keep track of time Abilities Abilities are special attacks, powers, and techniques for combat and feats unattainable through skills or traits. Abilities are represented by Martial Arts and Powers. Characters are not restricted to choosing powers from a single category; they can mix and match abilities from either channeling or martial arts to create more flexible characters, though they may one to specialize in one or the other to be more effective in combat. Abilities come in two varieties: Powers, and Martial Arts Powers Powers are extraordinary abilities ranging from the ability to change size to blasting enemies from afar with energy to moving to distant locations instantaneously. The available powers are: * Aid: Either temporarily increase a stat or heal a drained characteristics * Armor: Raise your Physical, Energy, Mental or Power defenses * Blast: Release a burst of energy to attack a foe * Change Size: Increase or Decrease your character's size. * Clairvoyance: View a remote area as if you were there. * Command: Force a target into completing an action you demand of them. * Damage Reduction: Take less damage than you ordinarily would from attacks. * Darkness: Suppress one predetermined sense * Dispel: Suppress an ongoing spell effect * Drain: Temporarily lower an enemy's stats * Enhanced Senses: Augment your existing sight, hearing, smell/taste, and touch senses * Entangle: Bind a target's limbs * Extra Limbs: Have additional appendages that fulfill multiple functions * Flash: Temporarily damage a target's senses * Fly: Fly through the air * Heal: The character restores Health or Stamina damage either they or a willing target have suffered. * Images: Create an image of an object or living creature * Invisibility: Render yourself undetectable to one sense * Jump: Leap greater distances * Morph: Transform your appearance or how others perceive you. * Run: Improve your character's run speed * Structure: Create a structure composed of a predetermined substance * Swim: Move through water more quickly * Telekinesis: Propel an object or a nearby creature in a designated direction * Telepathy: Communication with another creature without being detected by other creatures * Teleport: Move from one space to another instantaneously Power Sources Powers can come from one of 4 sources: the character's inner strength, the environment, energy granted by an extraordinary patron, and the creature's own natural abilities. Energy for powers is manipulated through a process called Channeling. The following are sources for Channeling are: * Prana: Fueled by spiritual energy contained within a creature's soul, powers fueled by Prana use Charisma for Accuracy rolls, drawing on the character's inner strength. * Primal: Drawn from the environment, Primal powers require great skill to use, using Intelligence for Accuracy rolls. * Psychic: Mental energy drawn from external forces. Psychic energy requires a strong force of will to control, using Ego for Accuracy rolls. Powers can only be Channeled by characters with the Channeling Trait. If the character doesn't have that trait, they can instead build Powers as Natural Abilities. * Natural Abilities are those inherent to the character, representing traits such as tough skin, additional limbs such as wings or prehensile tails, or natural poisons. Natural Abilities cannot take Limitations to decrease their cost, but they cannot be Dispelled and are always active, while Channeled powers are typically only active when the user needs them to be. Martial Arts Martial Arts represents feats of strength, finesse, and toughness, defining how a character attacks, how accurate they are at a distance, and how they withstand and deflect enemy attacks. Martial Arts fall into four categories: * Attacks: A character's hand-to-hand maneuvers. Either Strength or Agility can be used for accuracy checks, defined by the player at the time the melee technique is purchased * Reactions: A character's techniques for blocking and dodging incoming attacks. * Stances: A character's posture in combat, affecting their Accuracy or Dodge passively Any character can build and use Martial Arts, and they draw from their own list of abilities. Any character can use the Base Maneuvers, but more sophisticated maneuvers must be developed with character points. Flaws and Complications After developing the character's characteristics, skill, and abilities, players must now define the Flaws and Complications in the character's lives that hold them back, curse them with significant physical or mental handicaps, or present regular problems for them to overcome. Flaws Flaws are aspects of the character's personality that regularly cause them trouble. Players receive 5 additional character points they can allocate how ever they wish per Flaw taken. * Addicted: You character can't live without a particular substance, and if they go for too long without it, their physical or mental health begins to suffer. * Aloof: You character works best alone and gets distracted when people get too close. * Arrogant: Your character is confident to the point of madness, believing themselves to be innately superior to all others unless proven otherwise. * Cowardly: You character is adverse to taking on challenges they are not guaranteed to complete, and adversity makes them cower in fear. * Entitled: Your character believes they are owed the world due to their position and upbringing, and they will be sorely disappointed by reality. * Gluttonous: Your character cannot stop thinking about food, and when they eat they stuff themselves to the point of sickness. * Greedy: Your character can never have enough of whatever they want, and they will go to extreme lengths to fulfill their desires. * Lustful: Your character is either A) sexually promiscuous to the point of foolishness, or B) quick to desire human company based on appearance alone. * Masochist: Your character takes great pleasure in suffering, whether its inflicted upon themselves or others. * Naive: Your character is too trusting of others. You always give others the benefit of the doubt, even if they have committed horrible crimes. * Obsessive: Your character is fixated upon a particular subject, whether it's vengeance, keeping everything in their vicinity tidy, or performing a single behavior over and over. * Obstinate: Your character has certain subjects they have strong opinions about and refuses to compromise on them, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are wrong or if their rigidness causes problems for their allies. * Paranoid: Your character is constantly watching their back is suspicious of everyone, seeing threats where there are none. * Prejudiced: Your character irrationally hates a particular ethnic group or type of creature. * Reckless: Your character ignores all obstacles or potential threats, no matter how dangerous the odds against them are. * Short-Sighted: Your character willingly ignores long term consequences in favor of short-term gain. * Simpleton: Your character has no great aspirations and a difficult time grasping complex subjects, needing them to be reduced to easily understood terms. * Sloth: Your character is lazy, taking the easiest possible route to solving problems, even if they are incorrect. * Wrathful: Your character is quick to anger and holds grudges for a notoriously long time, either demanding immediate restitution or taking revenge as soon as possible. Complications Complications differ from Flaws in that they are usually personal issues that have nothing to do with the character's personality, and they are normally conditions the character must face through no fault of their own. How players develop their persona's Complications determines how many bonus character points they receive, as not all handicaps are equally debilitating, and how many total points players can acquire is up to the Game Master's discretion. The available Complications are: * Enraged: The player becomes unreasonably angry and difficult to control in a pre-defined circumstance. * Hunted: The character is being tracked down by someone who seeks to humiliate or kill them. * Involuntary Change: The player transforms into another form that inconveniences them according to a pre-determined condition. * Mental Handicap: The character suffers from a mental condition that severely hampers them in their day-to-day activities. * Negative Reputation: The character committed or was accused of committing an act in their past that continues to color how other people react to them. * Physical Handicap: The character has a physical disability that handicaps them in their day-to-day activities. * Social Handicap: The character has a personal-life issue that can cause them difficulties * Unlucky: The character suffers from extraordinary bad luck that hits them at the worst possible times. * Vulnerability: The character takes more damage from attacks of a pre-determined type. * Ward: The character has another person they are trying to protect. Final Calculations By this point in your character's creation, all you need to do to complete the character sheet is to finish any miscellaneous calculations. Make sure you complete the following: * Derived Characteristics: Now that you have determined your character's final Base Characteristics, including any additions from Equipment or persistent powers, follow the formulas described under the Derived Characteristics section. ** Defense: Add together the statistics relevant to your Defenses to determine each total. *** Physical Defense: Toughness+Armor *** Energy Defense: Resistant+Armor *** Mental Defense: Willpower+Armor *** Power Defense: Armor ** Movement: Add your base movement speeds with whatever additions are avaiable through purchased Powers and Equipment, then make the following calculations to determine the final movement speeds *** Full Movement: The character's Agility *** Half Movement: Agility/2 *** Sprint Speed: Double the character's Agility, times whatever modifiers are available through purchased Powers and Equipment. * Abilities and Attacks: ** Time: If the power doesn't have any limitations affecting the activation, the power requires 1 action to activate. ** Accuracy: An ability's Accuracy equals the primary Characteristic used for the ability, plus Dexterity, and divided by 2 (Formula: Characteristic+Dex/2) ** Dodge: Unless the power has an Addition or Limitation affecting the character's Dodge, this number should be the same as the Derived Characteristic. ** Effects: Describe the powers effects, and if the power has effect dice, add together the purchased dice with its Primary Characteristic's dice, plus any bonus dice from equipment. * Skill Dice: If the character has purchased Proficiency in the a skill, add 3d6 plus an additional 1d6 per rank in the skill's Proficiency with the primary Characteristic dice and any bonus dice from equipment. Fleshing out you character The previous 9 steps have been about defining your character mechanically, forming what role they play in the group, what kind of upbringing they had and how that shaped their skills, and what kind of powers they can use in combat. However, none of these elements define who the character is; they describe a sheet of statistics, and people are more than just what they are capable of or where they come from. They have hobbies, fears, aspirations, and responsibilities that shape their personalities and present goals, and defining what these aspects of your character are and expanding on why the character has the Characteristics, Skills, and Abilities they do will go a long way in molding your stat sheet into a person. Here are some things to consider when fleshing your character: * Why does your character have the Characteristics, Skills, and Abilities that they do? If they are physical strong, have weapon proficiencies, and a variety of martial arts techniques they can use to take down opponents, why did they spend time developing themselves this way? * What does your character think about their upbringing, and what does their childhood, education, and current occupation say about them? If your character was born in poverty, grew up a slave, how did they get to become a soldier, and how does their impoverished upbringing affect how they view the world and what they want to do? * Is your character aware of their flaws, or are they willfully ignorant of their worst attributes? * How did your character get their Abilities, and what do they hope to accomplish with them? UTTAS is, first and foremost, a role playing game, and that means that for all the battles your character may encounter, none of that means anything if the battle has no purpose in your character's story. Even if it's something as basic as them training to fight a single enemy who wronged them in the past, your experience as a players will be greatly enhanced by giving your character a goal and telling whoever is running the game what you want your character to accomplish. The process in action Alex decides they want to play a nature-themed magic user with high durability. Alex's Game Master has decided on the Fixed Point System for character creation at the Competent Tier. This means Alex can build Willow with 150 total character points, with 25 allocated for Base Characteristics, 15 Skill Ranks, 15 points in Traits, and 50 points to build Abilities with, and they can receive up to 30 additional character points by taking 2 Flaws and up to 20 points in Complications. Alex wants Willow to be a durable magic user, so they allocate 5 points into Body. Willow bases her magic on Primal Energy, so Alex allocates 10 points into Intelligence. The remaining 10 points are split between Dexterity, Ego, and Strength, and Alex takes 2 points out of Charisma to reallocate into Agility. Alex is having a difficult time selecting skills fitting their theme, so they so look at available back grounds to help narrow down their choices. Willow was born and raised in a forest, so Alex places her Childhood in the Wilderness. They figure Willow's family died at some point, leaving her alone in the forest without any parents, which makes Wild Child a fitting Education. Someone fitting this upbringing is more likely than not be attracted to a life of danger and excitement, so being an Adventurer makes the most logical sense for an Occupation. From this Background, Willow gains 1 rank in Handle Animal, 3 ranks in Survival, 1 Equipment Proficiency, and 2 ranks in any skills of Alex's choice. They choose Spears as Willow's Equipment Proficiency, as she mostly likely used low-tech weapons during her wild upbringing, and Alex puts 1 rank each into Handle Animal and Knowledge (Nature) to best reflect her connection with nature. Willow still has 8 unassigned ranks, which Alex uses for Armor and Shield Proficiency, Tracking, First Aid, Climbing, Riding, Perception, and Acrobatics to round out her Skill set. When deciding on Traits, Alex figures Willow's most logical options are those that help her survive alone in the wild. Willow has to take Channeling so she can use Primal powers, making that her first obvious choice. She must be aware of her environment even while sleeping, so Lightsleep is an easy choice. Finally, Willow receives Terrain Mastery: Forests to help her move unhindered through difficult terrain in the woods and keep in line with her "protector of nature" theme. Alex wants Willow to have a wide range of abilities, so they decide on splitting their available 50 points between 2 Martial Arts techniques and 3 Powers. She builds a Mobile Stance and Strike maneuver to protect herself from attacks and increase her melee damage, since she can't always rely on powers. For her three powers, she builds a 10 point Entangle to restrict her foes' movement, a 10 point Blast for ranged combat, and a 10 point Shield to improve her defense. Since they're allowed 30 character points by taking Flaws and Complications, Alex purchases 8 points of Natural Running to increase her movement speed and 22 points of Natural Enhanced Senses to make easier for her to perceive enemies. When considering Flaws and Complications, Alex comes to the conclusion that Willow would have terrible social skills because of her Background, and the death of her family would leave some serious mental scars. They take Aloof and Paranoid to symbolize her suspicious and solitary nature, and she's given a Mental Handicap to represent her PTSD. She's also given an Enraged Complication as a response to her childhood trauma. Category:Character Creation